Voyages of the Dawn Chaser
Voyage Three - Lucifers Sword
Chapter 9 Naught but Ghosts
It was an anticlimax of course, but then it had to be, for this sand marooned and ruined building housed no one any longer, and it was miles from anywhere other than the shore. Yet even though that was the case there was still a moment of blood tingling and hair raising trepidation as the mournful note echoes around the broken splendour. Dust motes and fine grains of sand shimmered on the vibrating air as it curled its way towards both the desert and the sea, and for a moment it seemed as if that shimmer would conjure something unseen from the very rock itself. But it didn't and as the note died away the dust settled leaving things as they had been before.
As Jack took the horn from his lips and bent down to lay it back in its burrow Elanor looked at him with raised brows
"And now?" she asked
He didn't reply as he slid the stone back into place, nor when he dusted his hands and stood up. His eyes darted around the surrounding desolation as if reassuring himself that it was just that, watching the shadows and the play of what light there was as he wiped his hands on his sash. The seconds stretched and Elanor opened her mouth to ask again but stopped when he turned and cast her a serious look,
"Now we wait."
It was the only answer he offered and with it said he took himself off to the stump of a nearby column and sat down, cross-legged, as if preparing to meditate. The other men cast him a wary glance, their disappointment clear, but they remained silent. Elanor however was less willing to accept what he chose to tell, and with a gesture of impatience she crossed to stand before him,
"What, exactly, are we waiting for?"
Jack's mouth tightened with annoyance for a moment then he carefully and ostentatiously made himself relax and smiled a false smile,
"People."
Elanor suppressed a sigh,
"Well I suppose we should be grateful that you didn't suggest we were waiting for the dead." Her own smile was equally false.
"No luv, they are definitely living." His smile was now definitely condescending.
Elanor noted that with interest, briefly wondered what he was hiding this time that he used such a distraction technique, and sat down beside him, pushing him aside to make room. Jack glared for a moment at the insistent pressure of her thigh against his and then shrugged and gave way.
"How can you be sure they will hear it? There was no sign of any habitation for miles around us," she asked calmly as she settled herself as comfortably as possible on the stone, ignoring his wary yet affronted glance.
He looked away from her,
"They will hear believe me. The horn always brings them. Been their duty for centuries to come when the horn sounds."
"Why?"
"Don't know and nor do they, least ways they don't seem to. But they come."
"Assuming they hear it."
"They will."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because they always do."
"Which brings us back to how, doesn't it?"
Jack glowered at her for a moment and then he looked towards the other men, indicating that they should step back out of earshot with a flick of his fingers. It said a lot that they obeyed without any hesitation, though she wasn't entirely sure just who, or what, it said a lot about.
When they had retreated far enough for their captain's satisfaction he leaned his head closer to Elanor's and whispered,
"Because the dead make sure that they do."
***
Norrington let his mind drift back to his nephew, and to his own anger at the man who had brought such destruction on him; at least as he had saw it. James might well have seen it differently.
It had never seemed odd to James 's uncle that he had not for a moment blamed Sparrow for his nephews fall, the pirate was what circumstances had made him, and within the confines of that he was as good a man as many and a far better one than he might have been. Admiral Norrington had seen too much warfare and suffering, too much blood and politics and treachery to believe in heroes any longer or even in abstract virtues, and far too much to blame a man for trying to stay alive. Nor did he believe, as James had, in self-evident truths, and had not done so for many years.
He, like James, had been born to a deeply devout family and while his belief in God's mercy had never wavered in all his years of service to the crown his understanding of men's right to that mercy had long ago shifted from the simple truths of his boyhood. James, in his own rigid honour, might have believed man's law indivisible from God's law but his uncle had long ago lost such comforts. Perhaps if his past had allowed him more ease with the idea of slavery then he would have had less compassion for Sparrow, but it did not.
For a moment the Admiral wondered if James had ever known the truth of Sparrow's past and what he would have made of it if he had. What answer would James have given to that dilemma? The truth of it was that he was that he was glad that he didn't know, for he was not as sure of his nephew's judgement as he once had been. He couldn't imagine the staunchly honourable James as seeing Beckett's actions as justifiable, but then maybe he was that he didn't want to. After all James had handed the heart to Beckett and he must have seen the risks of that, whatever the man was.
Beckett, the damned man had done so much damage to so many that the Admiral found it difficult to do the simple Christian duty of praying for his soul. On that silent admission he realised that Hathaway was staring at him and he dragged himself back to their conversation.
"Beckett was not an honest man," he said slowly wondering just how honest he should about what he knew. "Though it can never be proved now, and probably couldn't have been so then, it seems likely that the slave dealing was a private transaction; and likely too that Beckett had borrowed company money to finance it, and without the proper permissions. He was not rich then but he was ambitious and greedy, it would seem probable that Sparrow's actions would have left him exposed to the risk of ridicule if nothing less. He would not have forgiven that."
Hathaway nodded,
"He had that reputation even then, or rather a reputation for being ruthless where his own interest was concerned. The merchant's son with the hunger for something more elevated, he was something of a figure a fun because as a result. It was a common joke that he got down on his knees and prayed each night for a peerage."
He smiled slightly and shook his head.
" Why Sparrow would have taken such a man for a friend I don't know, but then he was something of an outsider too and he must have been a lonely young man in many ways, given the rumours of his past and with so few people with which to share his interests."
The admiral frowned, recalling the gossip around St James,
" Beckett no doubt had other motives for any offers of friendship, and maybe not only Sparrow's person. Perhaps he had thought to use those dubious connections Sparrow was supposed to have to his own advantage, only to discover that the young captain was somewhat more honourable and mindful of the law than he was himself."
Hathaway nodded and sighed and slipped back into the past again,
"But on this one occasion he persuaded his friend to be a little less scrupulous about the regulations and it cost him dearly. It was not a pretty sight, seeing Beckett there in the cells in his satin and lace. But it was not that, it was that he had so much....... glee, there is no other word to describe it, in his demeanour. He took so much pleasure in telling Sparrow how his fiancé and her family had repudiated him on hearing of his actions. I doubt that Sparrow had really expected anything else, but he must have hoped and hearing it in such a place and in such a way..."
His voice faded as more memories came to him, the knowledge of what else might have awaited Sparrow in that cell and the truth that he would have done nothing to stop it. The admiral might have guessed for looked down at his hands with a bitter expression,
"Yes there was a streak of the sadist in him, James journal makes that abundantly clear. He was well matched with Jones."
Norrington rose suddenly, as if the chair he sat in had offended him in some way, crossing to stand before the window with his hands clasped behind his back. A small forest of masts rose and fell with the tide while on the ramparts new lines of canon had appeared, the mistakable signs of a war being planned for. His hands tightened as he thought of what might yet be Beckett's last legacy.
"Speaking of whom, the Spanish have been demanding again. War may soon be upon us."
***
For a long time they waited in silence, only the slowly shifting shadows giving any hint of the passage of the sun above them. Jack gave no sign of how long he expected to wait, or what might happen if no one came, instead he seemed to have drawn in on himself, eyes closed hands resting lightly on his knees. Though never far from his pistol Elanor noticed.
She was not sure at which point the sounds of wind blown sand became something else, nor when the blurring of the shadows stopped following the sun, but at some point she was aware that Jack's attention had become focussed on the world around them again and looked for the reason. Then she noticed the faint sound of voices on the air and saw the outline of figures in the dusty light.
There were ten of them, at least there were ten that she could count, or thought she could. In the uncertain light their shapes were blurred and oddly elongated, their shoulders wider than their hips, their necks long, their heads cone shaped. They moved with a strangely boneless walk, not a glide yet not a step either, their outlines fixed, 'like wooden dolls moved on wheels' she found herself thinking. Her hand strayed briefly to her belt and opened Ariadne's eyes, the movement was too small to be noticed by anyone who did not know to look.
Jack straightened and then rose, adopting a now familiar posture, balancing on the balls of his feet, throwing back his shoulders and resting his hands on his pistol. She could feel the fear rolling off him but his pose was one of arrogant command, an actor readying himself to play his scene she realised, and wondered, not for the first time, what he was thinking as he pulled the mask into place.
"Told you." he muttered as he passed her, and then took a couple of swaggering steps towards the advancing shadows.
Those shadows took on more detail as they drifted to a stop at the edge of the ring of columns. They gathered in a group, three in the centre the others surrounding them. All looking towards Jack, ignoring the muttering men who had withdrawn back into the shadows, and apparently not seeing the woman who was standing not arms length from his shoulder.
Somewhere a lamp was lit, throwing the shadows into sharp relief and sending honeyed light spilling across the space between the standing stones.
The strange shapes now became clearer, the broad shoulders were explained by the elaborate and stiffened collars of their woven gowns, the intricate pleating of their tunics blurring the shape of the body beneath, while the cone like heads were due to nothing more than the round yet flat topped headdresses each one of them wore, head gear that looked like ropes of clay wound upon themselves, like children's pots made of plasticine. Seven of the ten were dressed in earthy colours, their robes a mix of browns and ochre and sandy reds, and their collars and headdresses the dark grey of half baked river mud. But the centre three were different, their clothing was the pale straw white of unbleached linen and their collars and headdresses were dark silver metal studded with blue and green pebbles.
Elanor was not surprised when Jack moved closer and addressed these three, but there was no knowing what he said for the language was as strange as the place and the people. All she could say, and she was unsure of how she knew this much, was that the words were old.
He spoke for little more than ten seconds but whatever he said made its mark for the three inclined their heads as if in agreement and came down the space between the columns in a slow progression, their eyes never leaving him. Finally they reached the three stone chairs and there they did turn away, positioning themselves carefully before sitting down in perfect unison, each taking up the same position, back straight, head up, their hands resting on their laps.
Drawing a deep breath Jack stepped forward to face them.
***
In the cabin of the Black Pearl Barbossa stirred for the first time in days. Nothing more than a flicker of a look in the wide and staring eyes, and the twitch of a muscle at the corner of the unsmiling mouth, yet just for a second he was something more than a living corpse. But there was no one there to see it. Barbossa had become as much a thing as the bed he lay on to the crew, only those charged with seeing to his few remaining needs ever coming closer than the cabin door.
The shadows that surrounded him did not move or lighten, nor did the weight of sorrow that pinned him to the blackness of this void ease, and yet it was as if a faint hint of a breeze moved over him. On that whisper of air there came the hazy memory of light and a world beyond grief and despair. In this place there was no time to judge the length of the memory by but when it was gone it left behind it a feeling that he could not put a name to, the hope that darkness might not be eternal after all
***
Jack's second speech, as incomprehensible as his first, was somewhat longer and was accompanied by many gestures with hand and arm, some of which encompassed his companions and the world beyond this ruin. The gestures, like the words, were met with silence. But it seemed to Elanor that the three were now watching Jack very closely indeed, and not only Jack for she caught the occasional darting glance in her own direction. What was he saying to them?
When he finally fell silent he looked around the three as if expecting some response but they remained silent. Jack quirked his brows and drew a deep breath then launched into speech once more, this time pacing the floor before the three stone thrones, hair and sash swirling as he turned. This third burst of speech brought a response of sorts for the three looked at each other as if seeking advice. For some reason she couldn't put a name to Elanor had the feeling that they were speaking, but within the privacy of their heads. Jack certainly watched them as if he thought something similar for his eyes flickered between them as if listening to a conversation. For an absurd moment she wondered if he could hear their thoughts.
After a minute or so of this silent commune the centre one rose and approached Jack, placing her hand, for Elanor thought this was a woman, upon his shoulder and staring into his face as if reading a message there. Jack flinched and leant away, but when the thin and fine boned hand grasped his chin he did not resist but stood and allowed the scrutiny. Then for the first time the woman, if that was what it was, spoke.
The language sounded the same as the one Jack had used but the accent was very different, the sounds rolling more smoothly and with a back of the mouth burr that had been absent from Jack's efforts. Yet the voice was husky too, as if rarely used, but with a resonance that seemed to set the dust in the air dancing again.
Elanor saw Jack's shoulders rise and fall in a sigh and he leant away from the figure before him, but the hand held his face firm, forcing him to look back, to meet the eyes looking into his so intensely. Finally he seemed to sag and nodded his head as if in reluctant acceptance. Only then did the woman look her way, removing her hand from his face and tucking it back into the depths of her trumpet shaped sleeve. The one to her right moved then, drawing a purse from its belt, dipping a similarly thin hand into the contents then scattering them on the floor before the chairs. The one to her left watched then did the same; Jack shrugged in resignation and took his flint from his pocket, striking a light before stooping and setting the light to what ever it was that had been scattered at his feet.
For a moment nothing happened and then there was a flare and the hiss of dried wood and leaf taking light. A faint ribbon of smoke rose as the flare spread along the length of the scattering, the ribbon growing thicker and darker.
'too much smoke for what is burning' Elanor found herself thinking as it curled its way around the three and Jack.
In the shadows behind them other shapes seemed to stir, the smoke dividing and multiplying, collecting drifts of itself from nowhere. Shapes formed within it, then shifted and faded to reform again. The sense of voices on the air returned and she was aware of a strange certainty that more than the people she could see were here and listening.
Suddenly the place was full of things that could only be described as ghosts and with their coming time itself seemed to roll back.
Elanor stood transfixed as the ruin rebuilt itself around her, the sand rising to reform the stone it had once been part of, the blasted walls reclaiming their fallen plaster and paint from the dust motes on the air, gilding coalescing from the shadows to line the restored stone bowls and shallow niches. Light grew, the glow of a thousand lamps eating at the shadows and setting the colour in the frescos glowing, picking out the bright iridescent scales of the fish that swam lazily in the perfumed waters. The scent of rose and jasmine rolled in on the breeze that stirred the silk of the hangings and the fine linen of the drapes. The smoke drifted over the mosaic of the floor coaxing pictures from it, bright scenes from forests and seas the like of which had not been seen for millennia.
The three still stood on the dais with Jack before them as the smoke curled and the place recalled its past, but the chairs were now truly thrones, their surfaces gilded and their seats backed with fine wood rests, carved and painted like the columns, and lined with cushions in bright silks. Elanor turned and looked behind her, the wide and frightened eyes of the three crew men told her they were also seeing something strange, but she was not sure they saw the same thing.
But more important than that were the others, for beyond the crew men were outlined a throng of people dressed in braided and pleated robes with oiled and plaited chignons of black or copper coloured hair, their necks and wrists decked with necklaces and bangles of bright coloured beads set in twisted metal. It was their voices she could hear on the air, the low chant they intoned a faint hum that set the stone pillars vibrating.
She turned back to face the three. Now she could see them more clearly, two women and a man. Tall and serene in appearance, their robes less cumbersome now, for the homespun bulk was gone and the fabric seemed finely woven and elegantly draped. The cone shaped headdresses now showed themselves as elaborate hair arrangements, silken tresses wound upon one another and bound by golden cords and elaborate combs. Unlike the crowd they wore no other jewellery, but a faint tracery was etched upon their skins in gold and silver dyes. As she looked at them she realised that their eyes were not human, in fact they had no eyes at all just almond shaped sockets that were filled with light, and it was this light that fed the lamps that flickered all around them.
But she was not afraid. Maybe she did not believe that any of this was real, or maybe it was a sense of the absence of evil or harm that reassured her and kept her heart to a steady beat. It only flickered when she looked across at Jack, for though the men he had brought with him were unchanged, he was not. He was recognisable enough, but the braids and ropes were gone from his hair and it hung thick and shining to his waist, without other ornament and bound only by one of those golden cords around his brow. The plaited beard was much the same but the beads were different colours and the braids were threaded with gold and silver; as he turned his head, looking from one to another, she saw and his neck was etched with patterns in the same silver and gold. He seemed to be dressed as they were too, in pale and pleated linen and silks. Yet, for all that, somehow he looked as right and natural in the strange attire as she had ever seen him look. Even the rings on his fingers looked to be a part of the whole. While the other crewmen seemed a gross intrusion from a world that had no place here, Jack looked as if he belonged.
Idly she wondered why that might be, was it because of whatever had happened when last he was here? Or because of some unknown characteristic of the man, or was it something to do with the water of life?
She could not know but somehow she was not surprised when she looked down at her own hand and saw the fall of silk across her wrist and same tracery upon her skin.
Jack was talking again, and the three were listening with apparent interest. When he paused they nodded and stepped away from him, crossing to one of the water filled bowls leaving him standing behind them. They arranged themselves around it, linked hands and stared down into the gold flecked contents. The light from their eye sockets seemed to grow brighter finding the flakes of gold and setting then aflame, fires seemed to course across the silver and gold trails upon their skins causing them to glow as if lit from within.
Behind them the chorus of the massed spectators grew in pitch and volume, the sound setting the draperies shivering and the stone humming. Elanor felt the vibration spread out beneath her feet and looked down, realising that the floor no longer seemed solid but that it had transformed into a sheet of liquid glass with space and stars beneath it. Here and there the scenes and pictures it had shown before remained as islands in the flow, but no longer fixed, instead each scene had become a window into another life or world. She felt dizzy just looking at it, and dragged her eyes back to the three people, if that's what they were, grouped around the bowl.
The were speaking now though she could not hear the words, even though the crowds behind her had fallen silent. But those words were enough to fill the space with sound just as their eyes were filling it with light.
Jack was staring at them, his eyes black and shadowed, and with the hint of a frown on his brow. It occurred to her that she saw dismay in his face, but acceptance too. She moved towards him, some part of her mind surprised that she could move, while another registered the sudden familiarity of the feel of the silk and linen robe rippling around her. She passed by the three without them appearing to notice and caught at his arm,
"Jack?" her voice sounded strange and wrong in the echoes of this place. "Jack what is it? Do they know?"
He looked at her and smiled an ironic smile,
"Oh yes, they know. Pity really but there it is. We asked, they told and now we have no choice."
"There's always a choice." she heard herself say.
He smiled again,
"Aye that's true enough, but some choices are no choice at all."
She looked at him for a long moment recalling with sudden clarity a remark he had made to her when he first told her his story,
"When they involve things a man cannot do?" it was a question but not one that need an answer for his look said it all. But he answered anyway, he nodded,
"When they involve things a man cannot do."
Elanor felt a burning need to know more, opened her mouth to demand to know more, but before she could speak she felt a hand grasp her shoulder and she was turned around to find the three standing behind her. The centre woman was holding her and thought the grip was too firm to escape without some effort it didn't hurt. The light from the woman's eyes did though, yet Elanor found that she couldn't close her own eyes nor look away. The chanting had begun again and the sound and the light seemed to grow, taking over all the space in the world. The woman spoke to her then, her words drawing shadow pictures in Elanor's mind, half memories, half imaginings. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack's hand reach for her and she heard his voice, raised to match the woman's, explaining or protesting she couldn't tell which.
Then suddenly it was dark.
***
Hours later it might have been that Elanor was aware of a rock pressing into her back and a cramp in her foot.
She raised her head and looked around her but the place she thought she had seen was gone and the one that was left was once again a desolate and sand blown ruin. It was dark now, no light at all except for the flickering glow from a fire somewhere off to her right. Slowly, and with some wincing, she turned her head and looked in that direction. It was a fire right enough, a small one, flames drifting in the occasional blasts of air coming down between the columns. Jack was sitting to one side of it and the three figures he had summoned were sitting on the other side. The grandur was gone and once again they were dressed in homespun robes and their headdresses had the crude look of a child's attempt at pottery.
Elanor drew a deep breath and turned her head to kook the other way. In the shadows of one of the broken plinths the three crewmen were sprawled in apparent sleep, and judging by their posture they were going to ache as much as she did when they awoke. In another corner the ones who had come with the three were also seated, but with much greater ease, and occupied in some strange game of counters, the board drawn in the dust and sand.
The movement of her head, or the sudden intake of breath, drew Jack's eyes to her and with a muttered word to the three he rose and came across. He squatted beside her and spoke in a low voice,
"It's dark now. Not safe to return to the ship, not till dawn. Not safe for them to return to their village either," he stroked his whiskers thoughtfully, "at least if it's a village that they come from. Never got a straight answer to that out of them. Either ways we need share this place with them for an hour or so longer so I'd be pleased if you'd not wake me crew. They are likely to be less trouble while they are asleep."
"They are going to hurt like hell when they wake Jack!" she protested quietly.
He gave her a warning look,
"They'll not hurt as much as they will do if they wake and make a nuisance of themselves here." He dropped his voice still lower, "It may have slipped your notice but we are somewhat outnumbered."
"It hadn't. But surely they wouldn't do anything stupid?"
Her words faded away in the face of Jack's raised brows and incredulous look.
He said nothing more on that subject instead going off on another tangent entirely,
"Don't recall them bringing so many of them last time." He muttered. "Can't be anything I did but something may have happened since. Either ways I'd rather we didn't do anything to wear out our welcome. Never know when we might need their assistance again."
"Why would we?"
"Can't say for sure, hope not. Hope I never have to come here again, but I thought that last time, and I was mistook wasn't I?"
Elanor shot a wary look to the three by the fire but they seemed occupied by their own thoughts. Jack caught her look and huffed a little sitting down beside her and handling her a water bottle,
"You'll be thirsty" he said, "know I was."
He was right but she kept her eyes on the silent three as she drank. Jack saw and smiled his approval,
"Nothing to be concerned about. As long as the men behave they'll not play us false. We've got nothing of interest to them."
"Not even the ships?"
"Specially not the ships. They cannot leave here even if they wanted to. Though I doubt it ever crosses their mind. Strange I'll grant when they live so close to the sea, and freedom." he looked down in sudden uncertainty and frowned, "Well assuming that they do that is. Not knowing where they live."
Behind them the three stared into the fire and the shadows without any apparent interest in their visitors. Elanor watched them for a moment then looked back to Jack.
"I'm not going to ask you what went on here now,"
She saw him open his mouth as if to deny that anything had and she caught hold of his wrist and squeezed, hard. He winced and shot her a baleful look but it turned to a wary half smile when she went on,
" I'd rather do that when we don't need to mind our manners. I think getting the truth, even as you know it, out of you is going to take some frank words and quite possibly raised voices."
His look became most definitely challenging but she ignored it, just gripping his arm tighter to prevent him getting up and moving away,
"So did they have any answer to the issue of Barbossa?"
Jack turned and looked towards them, his face shuttered in the poor light,
"Oh they had an answer right enough."
"What was it?"
"Nothing more or less than I feared," he said quietly, "knew they'd know but I hoped it would be so cryptic as to be useless, that or it would be something they could do."
"But it's not."
"No."
"So can we help Barbossa?"
"Seems we must. " he sighed, "Thought it might be that. Must. Bloody Tia Dalma again ain't it? Maybe, well possibly. " He shook his head, beads rattling, "Her or another of her kin anyways."
Elanor gave him a long, hard, look but he seemed to be serious enough, though not overly willing to tell her more. She had no intention of allowing him to get away with that and as he made to rise she pulled him down again, ignoring his pained and resentful look.
"So what is it this thing that we must do?"
He sighed and looked at her in silence for a moment, then reading the determination in her face he sighed again and inclined his head closer towards her, speaking in a near whisper,
"Find it."
She couldn't decide if he was being deliberately difficult or if the enormity of the task inhibited him from naming it. Either way she wasn't allowing him the luxury of a choice,
"Find what?"
He thought for a moment, then he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, then he drew a deep breath and looked at her wide eyed and serious,
"Lucifer's Sword."
